At least four prisoners freed in error still at large, BBC told

The BBC was told that at least four prisoners who were mistakenly released were still at large.

They are among 262 prisoners mistakenly released in England and Wales this year; While this number was 115 the previous year, it increased until March this year.

The new information comes as the government is under increasing pressure following the mistaken release of a number of high-profile prisoners.

An Algerian sex offender who was mistakenly released from prison was arrested by police on Friday.

Brahim Kaddour-Cherif was one of two men mistakenly released separately from prison in the same week. Both are back in custody after William Smith surrendered on Thursday.

The releases come after migrant sex offender Hadush Kebatu, who arrived in the UK on a small boat, was mistakenly released from HMP Chelmsford in Essex late last month.

A Ministry of Justice spokesman said: “The vast majority of offenders who are wrongly released are brought back to prison quickly and we will do everything we can to work with the police to catch the small number of people who are still in the community.”

But there is widespread criticism of the government’s handling of the issue.

Shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick said the unnamed prisoners exposed the “incompetence of this government”.

“It should not be left to journalists to uncover the truth. [Justice Secretary] “David Lammy must finally reveal how many prisoners were accidentally released and how many are still at large.”

A spokesman for the Liberal Democrats said “every resource” should be spent on finding prisoners.

Jess Brown-Fuller said: “This is a disgrace and a farce. There should be no need for the media to inform the public about prisoners being released after they were accidentally released.”

In a statement, Lammy said: “We have inherited a prison system in crisis and I am appalled by the rate of erroneous releases this has caused.

“I am determined to tackle this problem, but it cannot be solved overnight, there is a mountain to climb.

“So I ordered strict new release controls, launched an independent investigation into systemic failures and began overhauling the old paper-based systems still used in some prisons.”

The revelation that four prisoners who were mistakenly released were still at large came just hours after Kaddour-Cherif’s arrest.

The Algerian national was spotted by a member of the public in London’s Finsbury Park area on Friday morning.

He was found guilty of indecent exposure in November 2024, relating to an incident in March that year.

He was given an 18-month community order and placed on the sex offenders’ register for five years.

He was allowed to leave HMP Wandsworth in south London on October 29, but police said they were not told this until Tuesday.

Kaddour-Cherif is understood to have entered the UK legally on a visitor visa in 2019, but has overstayed his time and is in the early stages of deportation.

He was released the day after he was found not guilty of violating the requirements of the sex offender registry; but he still faced other charges and was required to remain in custody.

Prison officers’ representatives said the typo meant there was no court order to detain him and he was released.

This followed a series of prosecutions and court hearings dating back two years.

William Smith, the second man to be released from HMP Wandsworth last week, surrendered on Thursday. He was released on Monday after being sentenced to prison earlier that day.

Prisons have been in crisis for several years. The population continued to increase because the number of personnel could not keep up with the number of prisoners.

Last summer, there were only about a hundred places available in men’s prisons. This triggered the government’s emergency evacuation plan; where some prisoners would be released after serving 40% of their fixed-term sentences instead of the normal 50%. Almost 40,000 prisoners have already been released under this scheme, which was introduced to reduce overcrowding.

But this was also reflected in the number of erroneous publications.

The government has promised to build more prisons to reduce overcrowding, and forecasts show the prison population will continue to grow, but it will take time.

Additional reporting by George Wright